All-in-one shisha maintenance kit

The Shishavac is an all-in-one narghile maintenance kit that would look absurdly out of place in most Middle Eastern cafes, but for home shisha enthusiasts, this espresso-machine-like device features an elegant brazier that uniformly lights the smoldering coals (promising perfectly heated coals within seconds) and easily clean the narghile hose... certainly the most nightmarish aspect of home shisha maintenance. At $249, though, The price is well beyond the budget of most narghile owners, who can usually manage to buy the most extravagant, multi-hosed shisha for about $50, but I'm entranced: I'd smoke my shisha a lot more often if I didn't have to deal with cleaning the bugger.
Shishavac [Official Site]

The attitude that all forms of tobacco are evil is like “abstinence-only” sex ed.

The amount of nicotine you get from smoking a hookah or a regular pipe is minimal compared to what you get from cigarettes. Yes, it’s relaxing; but so is a glass of wine or a pint of ale, and if all you want is to get drunk those are highly inefficient means of doing so.

I’ve been smoking a regular oldschool pipe since long before steampunk retro-cool came along. It’s all about the oral gratification factor: taste and aroma (try the G.L. Pease blend called Montgomery: it’s “better than sex”); and with hookahs, the social thing of people gathering around a bit of fire and making smoke like dragons.

And never discount the ancient archetypes when trying to figure out why people do apparently silly things like puff on smoke. Dragons, breathing fire, breath as spirit made visible, the campfire, the hearth, the four elements, and so on. These and others are more powerful in the human psyche than one might think.

By the way, the smoke from shisha isn’t just nicotine and molasses, it’s also got the various flavor elements of the tobacco in it, along with whatever fruit essences might have been added.

Oldschool pipe smokers also have our gadgets, though nothing quite as impressive as the Shishavac. A little metal three-way tool is quite sufficient for tamping down the tobacco in the bowl and loosening the ash when done, along with a supply of pipe cleaners for removing moisture and traces of ash from the stem; and a reamer for keeping the carbon layer in the bowl at the correct thickness. No electricity required:-)

It cleans your tobacco? Oh, wait, you’re just using some kind of non-standard terminology. For anyone as confused as I was the first time reading this, John is using both narghile and shisha to refer to the hookah. Actual shisha, the tobacco, is not mentioned in this post.

In regard to the device itself, evenly lighting a coal in seconds would make that thing worth the price.

You’ve fallen victim to the myth that because cigarettes are evil, cancerous things all tobacco is an evil, cancerous thing. It’s not exactly *good* for you, but what you’re implying is similar to saying that since you can get STDs having sex and it sometimes makes you smell funny afterward, all sex is bad and dangerous and only gross heathens do it.

A hookah smoker doesn’t inhale smoke anyways. It’s vapor formed from heating molasses and nicotine. If the tobacco actually starts to burn, it becomes very harsh and nearly impossible to inhale.

I think the redeeming feature is the coal lighter. For the vacuum thing, couldn’t you just make a house vacuum attachment or a handheld pump thing to cycle air or water through it? Hell, this is Boing Boing; where’s the penis pump shisha cleaning attachment?